Politicians are often extorting special interests not just being manipulated by them.

In a year which clearly showed that public opinion has no effect on our governing bodies and that no amount of tragedy, crisis, or farce will actually get our government to do a better job, its unreasonable to expect that the government shutdown would bring about change. So put political finance reform on next year’s wish list. Meanwhile lobbyists and politicians will continue to give each other the business.

Share this:

Like this:

You know the staff at NobodyisFlyingthePlane would never advocate for national registries or more databases tracking citizens’ private information, especially not a list of those with mental illness, but the NRA is going too far to get its way.

Forget the lunacy of their suggestion to turn schools into armed camps. The issue that really needs to be addressed is that we have a system of proxy government by and for special interest. A government of, by, and for the people shouldn’t be subverted by special interests which clearly do not represent the majority of citizens.

A new survey Wednesday by MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and Marist College found that 60% of respondents want stricter laws governing the sale of firearms.

In particular, it showed 87% of respondents support expanded background checks, with strong backing from Democrats, independents and Republicans.

Obama complained in his speech that Senate opponents who are certain to filibuster any legislation will do “everything they can to avoid even allowing a vote on a proposal the overwhelming majority of the American people support.”

This story is a great example of whats wrong with business by legislation. The right amount of lobbying not only generates profits, but it can essentially create an industry out of thin air. Regardless of the the need or real value of that industry.

The digital health records industry is an example of businesses using lobbying efforts to fuck citizens and drive up healthcare costs without adding any value to the system.

big digital records companies … have reaped enormous rewards because of the legislation they pushed for. “Nothing that these companies did in my eyes was spectacular,” said John Gomez, the former head of technology at Allscripts. “They grew as a result of government incentives.”

Its important to note that the real problem here is not digital health records, its the harm that lobbying does to our system of government.

The market perception that some financial institutions are “too big to fail” is alive and well. If you want to remove that perception, you need to break up our biggest banks.

creditors still believe that the government stands behind very large bank holding companies and other big financial companies.

In effect, the government is providing a form of insurance that encourages financial institutions to become even bigger — and thus even more likely to be protected by some combination of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other agencies. This is an unfair, nontransparent government subsidy that encourages excessive risk-taking and creates a very large potential downside for the nonfinancial side of our economy.

When the choice is between global calamity on the one hand and unpalatable, unpopular and perhaps even illegal support for big banks on the other hand, these officials expect to go with the bailout.

Prominent figures on Wall Street fought fiercely against the broad contours of financial reform legislation in 2009-10 and fight now on every line of every detailed regulation; their estimated 3,000 to 5,000 lawyers and lobbyists work very hard and earn a great deal of money for a reason.

We need to have a credible commitment to let any financial institution fail — in the sense that it will go out of business, wiping out shareholders and imposing losses on creditors.

But any promise for global megabanks that we would “just let them fail” is completely hollow. Standard or even modified bankruptcy procedures are not a credible threat because of the damage this would cause to other financial institutions and to confidence around the world.

Make banks and other financial institutions small enough and simple enough to fail — this is the point stressed by Messrs. Fisher and Rosenblum.

As Mr. Haldane documents, when measured properly, there are no economies of scale for banks over $100 billion in total assets. As a society, we are not losing anything by imposing a size cap on our largest banks, which currently have assets in excess of $2 trillion. Of course, there are private benefits that are being lost — meaning lower subsidies for large financial firms and the powerful people who run them.

If you don’t read the essay at least click the link at the bottom to jump to some quotes from it. This essay gets right to the heart of what I mean when I say Nobodyisflyingtheplane. The very essence of what it is to be an American is lost amid the scramble to get into the 1% before the doors slam shut. What so few seem to see, but this essay writer soundly declaims, is that the scramble itself and the closing of the doors is the problem not the solution. The conservative party, among it’s many other nefarious intents, wants everyone to believe that they can personally get into the elite club at the top. So believing, they will eternally support the exclusive protectionist policies of the conservative platform. This is plainly foolish. Even in the rosy colored remembrances we have of a particular time in our past when everyone was moving up and lives were improving, very few… wait, let me repeat that, very few people moved into the top economic strata in our country. We all buy into the belief in the glorious republic where anyone can make it. While that’s mostly true, we stretch this belief into one in which anyone can make it all the way to the top, and from there we stretch the mythology into I can make it to the top.

I’m sorry to say that’s just not true. The odds that you or anyone you know will become one of the economic elite in this country are astronomical. I’m saying this to a very intelligent, hard working, successful group of friends, but when you get down to it, its completely improbable. The problem with this is that we can’t let one party tailor our political, economic, and social policies for the few who will ever make this transition. Its tantamount to making the lottery our national fiscal policy. Conversly we can’t let the other party tailor policy for those who aren’t going anywhere no matter what we do for them.

what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive

Policy should allow for and reward occasional class jumping, but be tailored to an inclusive economy that raises the standard of living for the majority, not just the chosen few.

Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society. Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity; often, greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for ever greater inclusiveness.

The history of the United States can be read as one such virtuous circle. But … virtuous circles can be broken. Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be tempted to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies languish.